Coffee May Protect Against Some Skin Cancers

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Go ahead, enjoy that morning mug. A new study suggests that
people who are in the habit of drinking coffee regularly may be
protected against malignant melanoma, the leading cause of
skin-cancer death in the United States.

People in the study who drank four or more cups of coffee daily
were 20 percent less likely to develop malignant
melanoma than noncoffee drinkers, according to the study
published today (Jan. 20) in JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer
Institute.

Of course, the findings don't give you license to fire up the Mr.
Coffee and then spend your day lounging in the sun without any
sunscreen — the best way to
prevent skin cancer remains avoiding sun exposure and
ultraviolet radiation, said study researcher Erikka Loftfield, a
doctoral student at the Yale School of Public Health and a fellow
at the National Cancer Institute.

"Our results, and some from other recent studies, should provide
reassurance to coffee consumers that drinking coffee is not a
risky thing to do," Loftfield told Live Science in an email.
"However, our results do not indicate that individuals should
alter their coffee intake." [ Top
10 Anti-Cancer Foods ]

Measuring java's effect

Previous studies had found hints that drinking coffee might be
linked to
lower rates of nonmelanoma skin cancers, but the findings
were mixed when researchers looked at coffee and melanoma, the
deadliest form of skin cancer. Melanomas arise from pigment cells
in the skin called melanocytes. According to the National Cancer
Institute, 76,100 new cases were diagnosed in the United States
in 2014, and 9,710 people died of the disease.

Loftfield and her team pulled data from a huge study run jointly
by the National Institutes of Health and the American Association
of Retired Persons, which tracked 447,357 retirees over 10 years,
on average. Ultimately, in this group, there were 2,904 cases of
malignant melanoma (a cancer that has spread beyond the top layer
of the skin), and 1,874 cases of early-stage melanoma, which
remains only on the top layer of the skin.

"Our study is the largest to date to evaluate this relationship"
between melanoma and coffee drinking, Loftfield said.

The participants reported their coffee consumption as well as
other factors that might influence their cancer risk, including
exercise, alcohol intake and body-mass index. To estimate
people's UV exposure, the researchers used NASA data on the
amount of sunlight in each participant's hometown.

Perky protection?

After the researchers controlled for the other factors, coffee
drinking turned out to be a boon: There were 55.9 cases of
melanoma yearly per 100,000 people among those who drank at least
four cups a day, versus 77.64 cases yearly per 100,000 people
among the people who didn’t drink coffee, the researchers wrote.

The findings specifically applied to caffeinated coffee, not
decaf. It's possible that caffeine itself could be the protective
factor, but there could also be some other compound in coffee
that protects against malignant melanoma that is more abundant in
caffeinated coffee than in the decaffeinated variety, the
researchers said.

The lack of a link with decaf could be due to chance, Loftfield
noted.

The researchers plan to look for evidence of this protective
effect in other groups of people, but Loftfield warns that the
research is limited: The scientists had no way of knowing about
the
sunscreen habits of their respondents, or their skin coloring
(lighter-pigmented and freckled people are more prone to
melanoma). Nor is it clear what coffee contains that could help
save the skin.